One apparent area of agreement among virtually all public participants in the recent debate over U.S.-Israeli relations is the importance of confronting Iran. Secretary of State Clinton made it a theme of her remarks to the AIPAC policy conference, as did PM Netanyahu, and interestingly enough, it's implicit in General David Petraeus's comment to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict complicates U.S. efforts to forge effective alliances with other Middle East states.

Add to that a recent column by Michael Hirsh of Newsweek, who quotes an unnamed U.S. official saying that the real reason Obama went ballistic over the continued Israeli intransigence regarding settlement building is that this policy is undermining U.S. efforts to deal with Iran.  

In short, what you see here is an emerging consensus that Iran is the problem, and we've got to address Israel-Palestine in order to focus everyone’s attention on that. For the record, some of the things  I've written are consistent with that view too.

But one word of caution, courtesy of Trita Parsi. Trying to push Israeli-Palestinian peace in order to then go after Iran has one obvious downside: it gives Tehran an enormous incentive to do whatever it can to derail the admittedly fragile peace process. As Parsi shows in his prize-winning book Treacherous Alliance, this is what happened during the 1990s, after the Bush administration excluded Iran from the Madrid Conference and after the Clinton administration had adopted the policy of "dual containment." Iran had never paid that much attention to the Palestinian issue before then, but it started ramping up support for Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups as a way to pay the United States back and to undermine U.S. efforts to isolate them.

So instead of announcing (or hinting) that we are interested in Israeli-Palestinian peace primarily so we can go after Iran, we ought to emphasize that we are interested in peace there because it’s the right thing to do (i.e., better for us, better for Israel, and obviously better for the Palestinians). At the same time, we should continue patient, realistic (and maybe even more imaginative) efforts to improve relations with Iran, so that they don’t have greater incentives to play the spoiler. Ditto Syria.

If we play our cards right, we might even generate something of a virtuous circle; where various parties with whom we now have disagreements begin to realize that they ought to deal now, lest we mend fences elsewhere and leave them with a weaker bargaining position down the road. But notice that will require a far-sighted, patient, and coherent approach to the region, and not just a single-minded focus on one particular problem.

Is this "Be Rude to U.S. Diplomats Month?" First, the Netanyahu government embarrasses Joe Biden during his visit to Israel by announcing it will build 1600 new homes in disputed East Jerusalem. Next, the Russian government welcomes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Moscow with the announcement  that it intends to complete the long-delayed Bushehr power reactor in Iran this summer. Clinton told a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov it "would be premature to go forward with any project at this time, because we want to send an unequivocal message to the Iranians," but Lavrov confirmed that Russia was going ahead anyway.

The Bushehr reactor has been a thorny issue between the United States and Russia since the 1990s, although it actually has little to do with Iran's nuclear enrichment program and has always been something of a red herring. But it was hardly a friendly gesture for Moscow to make this announcement during her visit, unless they were trying to score some cheap bargaining points. And it made me wonder: where are everyone's manners?  Diplomacy doesn't always have to be, well-diplomatic -- but this sort of gratuitous slap is both petty and counter-productive.

The two situations aren't identical, of course, given that Israel is a close ally and the recipient of billions of dollars of U.S. aid, and Russia is a country with whom U.S. relations are more competitive. One would therefore expect this sort of thing from Moscow but not from Jerusalem. In both cases, however, the United States should make it clear that it doesn't appreciate being dissed in this fashion.

To its credit, the Obama administration has shown what Woodrow Wilson called "the self-restraint of a truly great nation, which knows its own power and scorns to misuse it." They haven't over-reacted to every perceived slight, and press conferences with foreign representatives don't have to be a complete love-fest. But every now and then, the United States has to demonstrate that this sort of thing has a price tag: the more that other states want from us, the more respect they ought to show. It's about that simple.

I've been fighting the temptation to weigh in on the current "crisis" between the United States and Israel -- Lord knows I've already said a lot on this issue over the past few years -- but a few comments are in order.

As one would expect, hard-line groups in the Israel lobby like AIPAC, the Conference of Presidents, JINSA and WINEP are now trying to pin the blame for the rift on the Obama administration. They want to portray Obama as insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state, in order to force him to back off the same way he did during last summer's confrontation with Netanyahu over a settlement freeze.

This view has it exactly backwards. Whatever you might think of its strategy or its tactics, the Obama administration has been genuinely committed to achieving a two-state solution before it is too late. This polichy is not an act of hostility toward Israel; on the contrary, it is an act of extraordinary friendship for Obama to keep this difficult item on an already overcrowded agenda. As former prime minister Ehud Olmert and current defense minister Ehud Barak have warned: If the two-state solution fails, the Palestinians will be occupied forever and Israel will become an apartheid state. Instead of helping Israel drive itself off a cliff -- as George W. Bush did -- the Obama administration is trying to prevent that disastrous outcome. And because Obama's team understands that the relentless expansion of Israel's illegal settlements is making a two-state solution increasingly difficult to realize, they believe that a halt to settlement building is a key part of a successful peace process. That includes East Jerusalem, by the way, whose annexation by Israel in 1967 is regarded as illegal by the rest of the world, including the United States.

Achieving a two-state solution is obviously in America's strategic interest as well, because it would remove one of the major sources of anti-Americanism in the Arab and Muslim world. The vast majority of Muslims reject al Qaeda and its murderous methods, for example, but they share its harsh views about U.S. policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A two-state solution won't solve all of our problems in the region, of course, but it would make a lot of them easier to address. It's clear that the U.S. military, which now has a lot of experience in the region, thinks so too. As Centcom commander General David Petraeus told the Armed Services Committee earlier today:

The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR [area of operational responsibility]. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas."

A two state solution is also the best guarantee of Israel's long-term future. By showing real backbone this time and explaining to the American people why his approach is right, Obama could be a true friend to the Jewish state.

Netanyahu, AIPAC and the rest of the "status quo" lobby don't get that, and neither do narrow-minded politicians like Joe Lieberman or John McCain. They seem to think it is okay for Israel to keep expanding its control over Palestinian lands and that the United States should back Israel's actions no matter what it does. When disputes arise they should be handled privately, because, as Lieberman put it, the U.S. and Israel are "family." Not true, of course: the United States and Israel are separate countries whose interests are not always identical, and sometimes it makes sense to air those differences in public. The "Christian Zionists" are even worse: They think Israel should control these lands forever in order to fulfill their wacky interpretation of Old Testament prophecy and bring the "end-times" closer. Never mind what happens to Israel itself in the process.

In fact, these people are false friends of Israel, because their recommended course of action will keep it on its current dangerous path. So when you hear them defend the special relationship, or when they accuse Obama or Mitchell or Biden or Clinton of putting unwarranted pressure on Israel, ask them what their long-term solution is. Do they think Israel should control all the territory that once was Mandate Palestine? If so, do they favor a one-party democracy in which Jews and Arabs get equal voting rights, or an apartheid state in which Jews rule over stateless Palestinians? Or are they in favor of ethnic cleansing, the same way that former House Speaker Dick Armey was? Or perhaps they support Netanyahu's bizarre version of "two-states," where Israel keeps all of Jerusalem and confines the Palestinians to a handful of dismembered Bantustans under Israeli control? Those are the only alternatives to a viable two-state solution, and if you don't like them, then you should give Obama credit for his efforts and hope that he holds his ground this time. Because time really is running out.

Given his loquacious style, it's probably not a good idea to parse Joe Biden's words too closely.  Nonetheless, one comment he made during a speech in Tel Aviv yesterday caught my eye.  Among other things, Biden told his audience "The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons" (my emphasis).

The interesting word in that otherwise unsurprising sentence is the verb "prevent."   No, I don't think the vice president was signaling that the United States is going to take military action (i.e., to engage in a preventive military strike).  Rather, I thought the use of that word revealed the underlying mindset that still pervades a lot of national-security thinking.  If there's something undesirable happening out there, U.S. foreign policy mavens immediately assume that Washington must to take action to prevent, halt, reverse, negate or stop it.  Implicit in that choice of words is the assumption that it is our responsibility to do this and that our actions are the essential ingredient to success.  We are the "indispensable nation," to use Madeleine Albright's infamous phrase, and nothing good can happen if we don't will it.

This is a rhetoric that takes American exceptionalism for granted, and it conveys a sense of unilateralism that one normally associates with Bush and the neoconservatives. This formulation also marginalizes and discounts Iran's own motivations and decisions: it is up to us to prevent them from getting the bomb and they have no say in the matter.

To see this more clearly, consider the other verbs that Biden might have used. He could have said "the United States is determined to persuade Iran not to acquire nuclear weapons." This formulation doesn't deny the United States an active role or preclude the use of carrots and sticks to achieve the desired outcome. But instead of declaring that we are determined to decide this outcome more-or-less on our own, it leaves open the possibility of convincing Iran that it would be better off forgoing weaponization. (I can make a pretty good case for that option, although I obviously don't know if Tehran would be convinced by it).  Plenty of other potential nuclear powers have ultimately decided not to join the nuclear club, and we ought to be exploring ways to encourage similar thinking in Tehran. 

And it's not simply a matter of ramping up pressure, because tightening the screws just increases Tehran's desire to have a more reliable deterrent.

This slightly different formulation acknowledges that whether Iran eventually gets nuclear weapons or not is at least partly up to them, and it treats diplomacy not as a step we have to take in order to persuade others to support sanctions (or to lay the groundwork for "kinetic action" later on), but as a genuine option that may not work but deserves to be pursued with real purpose. Bottom line: I wish the vice president had used a different verb.

We've all had the experience of suddenly realizing what we should have said, but long after the opportunity to say it has passed. (On Seinfeld, George Costanza was once obsessed with this problem). Anyway, it happened to me last week, during a seminar with Special Representative for Afghanistan/Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, prior to his public appearance at the Institute of Politics Forum here.  

During the discussion, I asked Holbrooke a less-than-inspired question and he gave a perfectly reasonable if not especially illuminating answer. (It was an off-the-record session so I can't tell you what I asked or what he said. But trust me, it wasn't a very good question). And then an hour later, as I was traveling home, I realized what I should have asked him.

Some of you may recall Holbrooke's remark at a conference in DC last August, when he defined success in Afghanistan with "the Supreme Court test: we'll know it when we see it."  (The reference is to Justice Potter Stewart's famous definition of pornography). That's a bit vague, as several critics noted at the time. But it raises the question that I wish I had asked: How would Holbrooke identify or define failure? In other words, what developments or events in Afghanistan and Pakistan would lead him, in his best professional judgment, to advise President Obama that our efforts there were not working and that it was time to disengage? 

To ask the question is not to hope for an unsuccessful outcome; or even to suggest that one thinks failure is likely. But unless we are willing to stay in Afghanistan forever no matter what, we need to be as alert for signs that our efforts aren't working as we are in looking for signs of success.

I missed my chance, but maybe a reader out there will get the chance to pose the question down the road. I'd love to hear what he says.

Guest post by Sean Kay

Recently in Washington, D.C., a group of experts met as part of an ongoing review to develop a new "strategic concept" for the NATO allies to approve at a heads-of-state summit to be held in late 2010.  Key speeches were presented by the NATO Secretary General Fogh Rassmussen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  The result, however, has been an exercise in NATO "group think" with little relevance to real strategic thinking about America and its core national security interes.

This NATO review process is failing to account for three fundamental contradictions.

First, NATO Secretary General Rassmussen stated that:  "We must face new challenges. Terrorism, proliferation, cyber security or even climate change will oblige us to seek new ways of operating. And in a time of financial and budget constraints, we need to maximize our efficiency within limited resources."  However, all of these issues are challenges far better suited for the European Union (EU) and a special US-EU relationship to manage rather than NATO.

Second, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that:  "This Alliance has endured because of the skill of our diplomats, the strength of our soldiers, and - most importantly - the power of its founding principles."  Yet, one of NATO's core founding principles was to create a circumstance in which Europe could stand on its own two feet.  This is, effectively, NATO's last unfulfilled mission after the Cold War and it is now hindered by an institutional framework allowing Europeans to free-ride on American security provision.

Third, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated:  "The demilitarization of Europe - where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it - has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21^st."  The demilitarization of Europe, however, means that NATO has succeeded in its fundamental mission - that Europe no longer fights wars is a good thing.  Moreover, Europe has no incentive to contribute to global security missions so long as America takes the lead.  Europe has every incentive to free-ride on American power and NATO perpetuates that.

Secretary Gates did provide his audience with a dose of realism, noting that:  "Right now, the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems." What he fails to appreciate, however, is that these problems are not going to be solved by berating European allies for pursuing obvious benefit to their national interests.  Rather, the solution is to change the strategic dynamic by beginning to reduce American military commitments overseas and realigning - including cutting - defense spending to reflect new security realities.

Recently, Secretary of State Clinton testified to Congress that:  We have to address this deficit and the debt of the U.S. as a matter of national security, not only as a matter of economics."  Indeed, the most serious threat to America's geostrategic position in the world is its $12 trillion national debt.  Yet, the United States has increased its commitment to Afghanistan, seems unlikely to be able to disengage from Iraq anytime soon, faces a growing confrontation with Iran, and is simultaneously increasing its defense spending.  Meanwhile, the American public is in its most isolationist mood in decades.  It is in this context that NATO's "group of experts" seeks to add missions to the alliance, rather than rethink the role of the alliance itself.

The Department of Defense recently published its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) which states rightly that the United States must "increasingly cooperate with key allies and partners if it is to sustain peace and security" (interestingly in a December 2009 draft version of the QDR, the language read "rely" on key allies).  Yet the QDR and the new defense budget both show a United States seeking to hold onto a primacy in global security that is no longer sustainable.  The QDR notes that the US seeks to prevent and deter conflict by:  "Extending a global defense posture comprised of joint, ready forces forward stationed and rotationally deployed to prevail across all domains, prepositioned equipment and overseas facilities, and international agreements."  This is not a strategy that reflects wise prioritization by a country $12 trillion in debt.

The QDR typically emphasizes NATO as part of this global presence - and understandably points to Afghanistan as an essential component of this global partnership in a transformed alliance.  While it is increasingly said that Afghanistan is a crucial test for NATO - the reality is that NATO has already failed in Afghanistan.  In his assessment from summer 2009, General Stanley McChrystal noted that the operational culture of the NATO mission in Afghanistan would have to be fundamentally transformed.  This critical step, however, is not happening.  While the Europeans are contributing, there is nothing inherent in the ISAF command structure that requires it to be a NATO-engaged coalition.  In fact, Brussels currently has very little to do with operations in Afghanistan and Europeans might contribute more if their reputation in Afghanistan was more closely linked to the future of the European Union.

A strategic concept for NATO need not be very complicated.  There are basically two missions left for the alliance.

First, NATO should be kept as a reserve capacity built around the traditional Article 5 mission of territorial collective defense as a hedge against future geopolitical rivalry at the global or regional level.  This, however, need not require costly new initiatives to keep NATO busy, but rather should be seen as a reserve fund of alliance power - political in nature with operational doctrines available on the shelf.  NATO should continue its process of reaching out to engage Russia and abandon its provocative and self-defeating discussion of further enlargement or "global NATO" operations which are not realistic or sustainable but which create strategic costs in the US-Russian relationship.

Second, NATO's staff should be given a clear mandate to work themselves out of a job - with their final mission being to hand over full lead responsibility for regional security to the European Union.  The most fundamental missions of NATO are achieved - Europe is integrated, whole, and free.  The challenge now is to ensure that this is sustained via the European Union.  By jealously hanging onto an irrelevant dominance over European security policy, the United States hinders effective EU security integration and ironically damages America's own interests.  If the United States can't hand over lead authority in Europe where can it?

Before committing to a strategic concept driven by NATO groupthink, President Obama should convene a policy review that brings into the process a broader range of strategic thinking than a self-motivated Washington-Brussels network which habitually seeks new missions, new budgets, and continues to drain the United States of scarce resources.  Europe is not yet capable of standing alone - and these strategic shifts will not happen overnight.  However, they certainly will never happen if the United States does not make the building of the European Union, not NATO, its primary strategic goal in the transatlantic security architecture.  A fundamental and lasting alignment of the transatlantic security dynamic can be a vital legacy for President Obama - but it will require a much greater application of realism to the role of NATO than is currently being considered.

Sean Kay is Chair, International Studies and Professor at Ohio Wesleyan University.  He is also a Mershon Associate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and Non-Resident Fellow at the Eisenhower Institute in Washington, D.C.  He is the author of NATO and the Future of European Security and Global Security in the Twenty-first Century:  The Quest for Power and the Search for Peace.

I've been trying to make sense of the recent news from Afghanistan and Pakistan, so let me share my musings here. There's no question that the news from the past week or so is encouraging. The Marine-led effort to clear the Taliban out of the Afghan city of Marjah appears to be going well (despite some obvious mishaps, like the accidental killing of a dozen Afghan civilians by an errant rocket attack), and the capture of a top Pakistani Taliban commander is likely to weaken those forces and suggests that the Pakistani government is taking this fight more seriously.

These are encouraging signs, and we should all hope that progress like this continues.  Whether you supported Obama's escalation of the war or not, the obvious way to end America's costly and distracting efforts in Central Asia is to achieve a rapid victory that enables us to withdraw. I'm still not optimistic about our long-term prospects (or convinced that it is as vital a contest as others think) but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong on this one.

That said, there are several reasons why it's premature to be hoisting the "Mission Accomplished" sign at this stage (and to be fair, I haven't seen anyone doing that yet).

First, most of the accounts we are getting from Marjah are from official sources or embedded journalists, and these initial reports often tend to highlight achievements unless the operation is a complete disaster. In short, there may be a bit of an upward bias in the reports we've seen so far.

Second, it is always difficult to know whether a tactical success is strategically significant, especially in this sort of engagement. There was never much question about the Marines' ability to expel the Taliban, the only question was how much resistance they would face and what the casualty ratios might be. Casualties do not seem to be that high on either side, however, which suggests that many (though not all) of the Taliban have slipped away to fight another day. That problem has always been one of our major strategic challenges, especially given the porous Afghan/Pakistani border. How can the United States and its allies pacify the entire country, when the adversary can flee and wait us out?

Third, as others have already noted, the real issues are 1) will Afghan security forces will be able to hold the area after the Marines move on, and 2) can the various groups and factions in Afghanistan achieve a workable political formula that will stabilize the country and (eventually) permit the United States and NATO to withdraw? Unfortunately, as Juan Cole notes today, there are still good reasons to be skeptical about the ongoing effort to train reliable Afghan police and security forces. And there are still few signs of genuine political reconciliation (or even compromise). 

What I can't decide is whether the capture of Mullah Baradar is a step forward or something more ambiguous. On the one hand, it's hard not to be pleased by signs that Pakistan is taking the counter-Taliban campaign more seriously, and equally hard to be displeased when a top Taliban military commander is no longer in the field (and is presumably giving up useful information while in custody). But as the Times notes today, this development may also give Pakistan a bigger voice in the deliberations over Afghanistan, and its past support for the Afghan Taliban hasn't always been constructive (at least, not from the U.S. point of view).

The lesson I draw from all this -- admittedly speculative -- is that U.S. military efforts in Central Asia need to supplemented by even more energetic efforts at regional diplomacy. We don't have the military forces, staying power, cultural insight, or influence to play unilateral "kingmaker" in that part of the world, and we ought to be putting as much of the burden on regional actors as we can. So it may be a good thing if the Pakistanis now have a more credible claim to a place at the table, provided we seize the opportunity and are open to a wide range of possibilities. Paging Ambassador Holbrooke?

The key thing to remember is that we ultimately don't care very much who is running Afghanistan or Pakistan, provided that whoever is in charge isn't giving anti-American terrorists free rein to attack the United States, and in the case of Pakistan, provided they are maintaining reliable control over its nuclear arsenals. Helping the regional actors work out a modus vivendi may be our best strategy, even if the outcome doesn't conform perfectly to our own ideals or political values.

So I see the past week or so as somewhat encouraging, but I'm not breaking out the champagne yet. And neither should anyone else.

UPDATE: In my haste this AM, I mistakenly referred to the captured Taliban official, Mullah Baradar, as a member of the Pakistani Taliban. That’s wrong: he is/was of course part of the Afghan Taliban (though he was hiding out in Pakistan before he was captured). My bad. And I'm still not sure what it tells us about Pakistan's overall aims at this point.

A reader also challenged whether it makes sense to refer to Marjah as a city. Wikipedia gives its population as 85,000 or so, swelling to 125,000 if you include the surrounding areas, and Radio Free Europe described it as a "large village." CNN used the term “city” in a recent background story, and the video found here makes it look like either term would be appropriate.  So I’ll stand by my original use of the word, but would happily defer to anyone who’s actually been there and has a different and well-informed view.

For additional “musings” on what all this might mean, see here.

I don't expect President Obama to devote much time to foreign policy issues during his State of the Union address tomorrow, because other topics (health care, the economy, regulating Wall Street, etc.) are causing him the most trouble these days. Plus, if he was going to talk a lot about foreign policy, what exactly could he say? That we are making great strides in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Nope. That his Cairo speech has transformed our standing in the Middle East and brought us to the brink of Middle East peace? Hardly. That we have turned the corner on climate change, nuclear arms reductions, or relations with Iran? Um ... not exactly. That relations with allies like Japan have never been better? Well, no. That the Guantanamo prison has been closed on schedule, as he promised a year ago? Er. ... not quite. When you look at the list, you can see why he wants to talk about a discretionary spending freeze and other exciting topics like that.

To be fair, the absence of tangible achievements isn't entirely Barack's fault. As I've written elsewhere, there were few low-hanging fruit when he took office, and nobody should have expected him to fix all of these difficult challenges in a single year or even in a single term. (You may even recall that back when he assumed office, he warned us that it would take time to repair all that was broken). So even if he had done everything right -- and he hasn't -- a lot of big-ticket items on his foreign policy agenda were going to defy easy solution.

But what would I like to hear him say on Wednesday night? If I may indulge in a bit of (unrealistic) fantasy for the moment, here's an announcement he could make that would really make me sit up and take notice, and restore some of my flagging enthusiasm for his presidency. After the usual bromides about the challenges we face, our global responsibilities, our lofty ideals, the sacrifices made by our fighting men and women, the heartbreaking devastation in Haiti, etc., imagine him continuing as follows:

• "Since I became president one year ago, no responsibility has weighed more heavily upon me than the protection of the American people and the preservation of our national security. Yet after a year in office, I have also discovered that this is a subject where conventional wisdom reigns supreme, and where it is difficult for creative new ideas to get a hearing. There is in fact little difference between Republicans and Democrats on most foreign policy issues: Both parties believe that the United States is beset by many ominous dangers, that it must continue to spend more on national security than the rest of the world combined, and that it has the right and the obligation to intervene in other countries whenever it wishes."
• "And I have discovered that few members of the foreign policy establishment ever question whether these beliefs and the policies they inspire may be making us both less secure in the world and less well-off here at home. There is little genuine debate about foreign policy alternatives inside the Beltway, and some critical subjects remain taboo. As president, I have sought to encourage open debate and discussion within my administration, but even I have found it difficult to push our policy debates outside rather well-worn lines."
• "Make no mistake: If America is going to respond effectively to the global challenges of this century, we need to have a more open debate about the strategic choices that we have made in the past and the policies we are committed to today. We need to ask if these choices and commitments still make sense for us now. We need to consider whether America is really more secure if it continues to pile up debt, continues to deny millions of citizens the same health insurance that other wealthy countries provide for their people, and freezes discretionary spending here at home while keeping military spending sacrosanct. We need to ask whether trying to engineer the lives of some 200 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan is necessary, or whether it is in fact a fool's errand. We need to consider how to rebuild the real foundations of America's global leadership -- our economy, our infrastructure, our educational system, and our moral principles-instead of equating security primarily with our capacity to blow things up via remote-control."
• "These are not easy questions, and reasonable people can and will disagree about the answers. Yet despite having assembled an experienced and remarkably talented foreign policy team, I have found it hard to get clear and compelling answers to these questions or even to elicit much debate about them. Accordingly, I have decided to appoint an informal "Team B" to provide me with an alternative strategic vision over the remainder of my first term. This group will not have formal governing authority, but will provide me and my national security team with an alternative perspective on key foreign policy and strategic questions." 
• "I am pleased to announce that this advisory panel will be chaired by Ambassador Charles B. Freeman, one of our finest and most experienced diplomats and a remarkably creative and independent thinker. The other members of Team B will include Professor Robert J. Art of Brandeis University, Professor Barry Posen of MIT, Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, Professor John Mueller of Ohio State University, Dr. Gerhard Caspar, former president of Stanford University, Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation, former NSC official Hillary Mann Leverett, former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Harvard Professor John G. Ruggie, Dr. Cindy Williams, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office's National Security division, Paul Pillar of Georgetown University, independent blogger Glenn Greenwald, and Foreign Policy magazine editor Moises Naim."
• "I am forming this advisory panel to supplement the analysis and advice that I receive from my regular foreign policy team, in whom I retain the greatest confidence.  Team B is not intended to replace the normal policymaking process; its assignment is to make sure that we are asking the right questions and that we do not adhere to misguided policies simply because they have become familiar."

Do I expect to hear those words -- or anything remotely like them -- on Wednesday?  Of course not; I said it was a fantasy, remember? I don't even expect to hear Obama admit that anything might be wrong with his approach to international affairs; that's not what the SOTU speech is for and not even this president readily admits error. The safe bet? Obama's foreign policy will continue along the same well-trod paths and with the same disappointing results.

P.S. Speaking of national security, I'll be spending Thursday and Friday as a guest of the U.S. Navy, observing a naval exercise. I expect to be duly impressed, but will do my best to maintain my scholarly independence. I won't have my laptop with me, however, so I won't be blogging between tomorrow and Friday.  Anchors aweigh!

If Mideast special envoy George Mitchell wants to end his career with his reputation intact, it is time for him to resign. He had a distinguished tenure in the U.S. Senate -- including a stint as majority leader -- and his post-Senate career has been equally accomplished. He was an effective mediator of the conflict in Northern Ireland, helped shepherd the Disney Corporation through a turbulent period, and led an effective investigation of the steroids scandal afflicting major league baseball. Nobody can expect to be universally admired in the United States, but Mitchell may have come as close as any politician in recent memory.

Why should Mitchell step down now? Because he is wasting his time. The administration's early commitment to an Israeli-Palestinian peace was either a naïve bit of bravado or a cynical charade, and if Mitchell continues to pile up frequent-flyer miles in a fruitless effort, he will be remembered as one of a long series of U.S. "mediators" who ended up complicit in Israel's self-destructive land grab on the West Bank. Mitchell will turn 77 in August, he has already undergone treatment for prostate cancer, and he's gotten exactly nowhere (or worse) since his mission began. However noble the goal of Israeli-Palestinian peace might be, surely he's got better things to do.

In an interview earlier this week with Time's Joe Klein, President Obama acknowledged that his early commitment to achieving "two states for two peoples" had failed. In his words, "this is as intractable a problem as you get ... Both sides-the Israelis and the Palestinians-have found that the political environments, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. And I think we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that" (my emphasis).

This admission raises an obvious question: who was responsible for this gross miscalculation? It's not as if the dysfunctional condition of Israeli and Palestinian internal politics was a dark mystery when Obama took office, or when Netanyahu formed the most hard-line government in Israeli history. Which advisors told Obama and Mitchell to proceed as they did, raising expectations sky-high in the Cairo speech, publicly insisting on a settlement freeze, and then engaging in a humiliating retreat? Did they ever ask themselves what they would do if Netanyahu dug in his heels, as anyone with a triple-digit IQ should have expected? And if Obama now realizes how badly they screwed up, why do the people who recommended this approach still have their jobs?

As for Mitchell himself, he should resign because it should be clear to him that he was hired under false pretenses. He undoubtedly believed Obama when the president said he was genuinely committed to achieving Israel-Palestinian peace in his first term. Obama probably promised to back him up, and his actions up to the Cairo speech made it look like he meant it. But his performance ever since has exposed him as another U.S. president who is unwilling to do what everyone knows it will take to achieve a just peace. Mitchell has been reduced to the same hapless role that Condoleezza Rice played in the latter stages of the Bush administration -- engaged in endless "talks" and inconclusive haggling over trivialities-and he ought to be furious at having been hung out to dry in this fashion.

The point is not that Obama's initial peace effort in the Middle East has failed; the real lesson is that he didn't really try. The objective was admirably clear from the start -- "two states for two peoples" -- what was missing was a clear strategy for getting there and the political will to push it through. And notwithstanding the various difficulties on the Palestinian side, the main obstacle has been the Netanyahu government's all-too obvious rejection of anything that might look like a viable Palestinian state, combined with its relentless effort to gobble up more land. Unless the U.S. president is willing and able to push Israel as hard as it is pushing the Palestinians (and probably harder), peace will simply not happen. Pressure on Israel is also the best way to defang Hamas, because genuine progress towards a Palestinian state in the one thing that could strengthen Abbas and other Palestinian moderates and force Hamas to move beyond its talk about a long-term hudna (truce) and accept the idea of permanent peace.

It's not as if Obama and Co. don't realize that this is important. National Security Advisor James Jones has made it clear that he sees the Israel-Palestinian issue as absolutely central; it's not our only problem in the Middle East, but it tends to affect most of the others and resolving it would be an enormous boon. And there's every sign that the president is aware of the need to do more than just talk.

Yet U.S. diplomacy in this area remains all talk and no action. When a great power identifies a key interest and is strongly committed to achieving it, it uses all the tools at its disposal to try to bring that outcome about. Needless to say, the use of U.S. leverage has been conspicuously absent over the past year, which means that Mitchell has been operating with both hands tied firmly behind his back. Thus far, the only instrument of influence that Obama has used has been presidential rhetoric, and even that weapon has been used rather sparingly.

And please don't blame this on Congress. Yes, Congress will pander to the lobby, oppose a tougher U.S. stance, and continue to supply Israel with generous economic and military handouts, but a determined president still has many ways of bringing pressure to bear on recalcitrant clients. The problem is that Obama refused to use any of them.

When Netanyahu dug in his heels and refused a complete settlement freeze -- itself a rather innocuous demand if Israel preferred peace to land -- did Obama describe the settlements as "illegal" and contrary to international law? Of course not. Did he fire a warning shot by instructing the Department of Justice to crack down on tax-deductible contributions to settler organizations? Nope. Did he tell Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to signal his irritation by curtailing U.S. purchases of Israeli arms, downgrading various forms of "strategic cooperation," or canceling a military exchange or two? Not a chance. When Israel continued to evict Palestinians from their homes and announced new settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in August, did Obama remind Netanyahu of his dependence on U.S. support by telling U.S. officials to say a few positive things about the Goldstone Report and to use its release as an opportunity to underscore the need for a genuine peace? Hardly; instead, the administration rewarded Netanyau's intransigence by condemning Goldstone and praising Netanyahu for "unprecedented" concessions. (The "concessions," by the way, was an announcement that Israel would freeze settlement expansion in the West Bank "temporarily" while continuing it in East Jerusalem. In other words, they'll just take the land a bit more slowly).

Like the Clinton and Bush administrations, in short, the idea that the United States ought to use its leverage and exert genuine pressure on Israel remains anathema to Obama, to Mitchell and his advisors, and to all those pundits who are trapped in the Washington consensus on this issue. The main organizations in the Israel lobby are of course dead-set against it -- and that goes for J Street as well -- even though there is no reason to expect Israel to change course in the absence of countervailing pressure.

Obama blinked -- leaving Mitchell with nothing to do-because he needed to keep sixty senators on board with his health care initiative (that worked out well, didn't it?), because he didn't want to jeopardize the campaign coffers of the Democratic Party, and because he knew he'd be excoriated by Israel's false friends in the U.S. media if he did the right thing. I suppose I ought to be grateful to have my thesis vindicated in such striking fashion, but there's too much human misery involved on both sides to take any consolation in that.

So what will happen now? Israel has made it clear that it is going to keep building settlements -- including the large blocs (like Ma'ale Adumim) that were consciously designed to carve up the West Bank and make creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority, and other moderate forces will be increasingly discredited as collaborators or dupes. As Israel increasingly becomes an apartheid state, its international legitimacy will face a growing challenge. Iran's ability to exploit the Palestinian cause will be strengthened, and pro-American regimes in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere will be further weakened by their impotence and by their intimate association with the United States. It might even help give al Qaeda a new lease on life, at least in some places. Jews in other countries will continue to distance themselves from an Israel that they see as a poor embodiment of their own values, and one that can no longer portray itself convincingly as "a light unto the nations." And the real tragedy is that all this might have been avoided, had the leaders of the world's most powerful country been willing to use their influence on both sides more directly.

Looking ahead, one can see two radically different possibilities. The first option is that Israel retains control of the West Bank and Gaza and continues to deny the Palestinians full political rights or economic opportunities. (Netanyahu likes to talk about a long-term "economic peace," but his vision of Palestinian bantustans under complete Israeli control is both a denial of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations and a severe obstacle to their ability to fully develop their own society. Over time, there may be another intifada, which the IDF will crush as ruthlessly as it did the last one. Perhaps the millions of remaining Palestinians will gradually leave -- as hardline Israelis hope and as former House speaker Dick Armey once proposed. If so, then a country founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust -- one of history's greatest crimes-will have completed a dispossession begun in 1948 -- a great crime of its own.

Alternatively, the Palestinians may remain where they are, and begin to demand equal rights in the state under whose authority they have been forced to dwell. If Israel denies them these rights, its claim to being the "only democracy in the Middle East" will be exposed as hollow. If it grants them, it will eventually cease to be a Jewish-majority state (though its culture would undoubtedly retain a heavily Jewish/Israeli character). As a long-time supporter of Israel's existence, I would take no joy in that outcome. Moreover, transforming Israel into a post-Zionist and multinational society would be a wrenching and quite possibly violent experience for all concerned. For both reasons, I've continued to favor "two states for two peoples" instead.

But with the two-state solution looking less and less likely, these other possibilities begin to loom large. Through fear and fecklessness, the United States has been an active enabler of an emerging tragedy. Israelis have no one to blame but themselves for the occupation, but Americans -- who like to think of themselves as a country whose foreign policy reflects deep moral commitments-will be judged harshly for our own role in this endeavor.

The United States will suffer certain consequences as a result-decreased international influence, a somewhat greater risk of anti-American terrorism, tarnished moral reputation, etc.-but it will survive. But Israel may be in the process of drafting its own suicide pact, and its false friends here in the United States have been supplying the paper and ink. By offering his resignation-and insisting that Obama accept it-George Mitchell can escape the onus of complicity in this latest sad chapter of an all-too-familiar story. Small comfort, perhaps, but better than nothing.

I'm still on the road (about which more later), but have been trying to keep up with the news, most notably the tragic events in Haiti. As Yglesias says, Haiti has been "one of the unluckiest countries on earth," and it's especially heartbreaking that this earthquake occurred after several years of genuine progress. That progress, one might add, was facilitated by the U.N. peacekeeping mission, one of those unheralded episodes that habitual critics of the U.N. ought to reflect upon. I don't think the U.N. is the answer to all the world's problems or an institution that can prevent major powers from pursuing their interests, but it does do a lot of good around the world and shouldn't be bashed just for sport, or because of cockamamie fears about mythical black helicopters, alleged threats to U.S. sovereignty, or other staples of rightwing paranoia.

The obvious thing for the United States (and the world community) to do is respond quickly, effectively, and generously. The Bush administration's initial response to the Indian Ocean tsunami was initially quite niggardly (our first pledge of aid was a paltry $15 million or so), but Bush & Co. eventually got its act together and the U.S. Navy in particular performed very effective relief operations in Indonesia. Some accounts credit the Navy's effort with helping reverse the slide in America's image in that country, which had fallen to very low numbers before the disaster struck. So this is a case where we can do good for beleaguered Haitians and for ourselves by responding rapidly and generously, and it appears that the Obama administration is trying to do the right thing from the start this time.

I spent some time over the holidays thinking about the underwear bomber, the hyperventilating that occurred after his botched attack, and the various inconveniences and costs we will incur as the authorities scramble to "do something." Add to that the likelihood that we will now get more heavily bogged down in Yemen, in another fruitless effort to remake a country that few, if any, Americans understand very well.

My first thought is to wonder whether Osama bin Laden and his buddies are really proud of Mr. Abdulmutullab. This latest attempt will cause the United States to spend a lot of time and money to make sure nobody sneaks another crude device through in their shorts, but does it really help al Qaeda's image to have their latest hero become famous for his underpants? Yes, I know that real lives were at risk, and I'm not making light of an attempt at mass murder. But in the battle for hearts and minds, having an enemy known as the "underwear bomber" is a pretty good propaganda coup. Score one for our side.

Second, most of the commentary about the attack focused on the breakdown in security procedures and possible intelligence failures, but for me the real issue is to ask why groups like al Qaeda want to attack us in the first place. With a few exceptions, this is a question that rarely gets much scrutiny anymore; pundits just assume "terrorists" are inherently evil and that’s why they do evil things. (And some American extremists recommend that suspects like the Gitmo detainees be summarily executed without trial. I kid you not). But we really do need to spend some time asking why terrorists are targeting us, and whether we could alleviate (though not eliminate) the problem by adjusting some aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

In particular, I'm struck by the inability of most Americans to connect the continued risk of global terrorism with America's highly interventionist global policy. One can have a serious debate about whether that policy is the right one or not; my point is that we are kidding ourselves if we think we can behave this way and remain immune from any adverse consequences. As a society, we seem to believe that we can send thousands of troops to invade other countries, send Reapers and Predators to fire missiles at people we think might -- repeat, might -- be terrorists, and underwrite the oppressive policies of a host of "friendly" governments, yet never pay any significant price for it back here at home. We are a nation of swaggering sheep: eager to impose our will on others yet terrified that doing so might inconvenience us, let alone put U.S. civilians in real danger.

I'm not for one minute justifying what groups like al Qaeda do; my point is that we shouldn't be surprised by it. When a very powerful country spends a lot of time interfering in other’s affairs, and sometimes backing obvious injustices like the Gaza War, then it ought to expect some people to be very angry about it. And because there’s no such thing as a perfect defense, sometimes those angry people will hit back. They won’t do as much to us as we’ve done to them because they’re a lot weaker, but occasionally they will draw blood.    

Yet Americans still find this surprising, and demand more and more extreme measures to "protect" us. We are like a heavy smoker who gets upset when they get diagnosed with emphysema, or a glutton who thinks it is "unfair" when he winds up with diabetes and high blood pressure. Face it, folks: if you want to be the world's dominant power, and you want to spend a lot of time telling millions of people how they should live, who their leaders should be, what weapons they are allowed to have, and what sorts of political beliefs are considered "legitimate," etc., and to back that agenda up with a lot of military force, then some amount of blowback is the price of doing business.  

Instead, Americans are shocked when someone like the underwear bomber appears, and politicians and "homeland security experts" immediately leap to the airwaves to dissect the latest Threat to Our Sacred Way of Life. Meanwhile, other "brave Americans" protest plans to move suspected terrorists from Gitmo to maximum security prisons, as if a set of incarcerated, heavily guarded, and disoriented prisoners pose a grave threat to their local communities. And just yesterday, the United States and several allies announced they were going to close their embassies in Yemen, citing the risk of terrorist attack. I can understand the desire to protect U.S. diplomats, but what does it say about our resolve, our staying power, and our recognition that world politics is a rough business and sometimes entails costs and risks? 

I'm no great fan of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, but you gotta admit his candor is refreshing.  From last week, in the Jerusalem Post:

Israel is willing to sit down for talks with the Palestinians, but with no preconditions or further gestures, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Thursday evening, stressing that the most recent overture was a tactical and temporary move.

In practice, we have not been building for a year and a half, so why pretend," he said in an address at the Ariel University Center. "Like in soccer, you make tactical moves sometimes. It is clear to everyone that in ten months, we will be building again full force; anyone who understands anything knows this. . . ." The foreign minister proceeded to expound on the need to downplay the conflict with the Palestinians, which "must not be a central topic, neither [in Israel] nor [in the international arena]. Not everyone in the world is troubled by this problem, and our task is to diminish it, and not make it a central topic."

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, (I am large; I contain multitudes)." --Walt Whitman

Readers here know that I recommended that we not pay much attention to Barack Obama's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, mostly because what mattered was not what he said -- we all know by now that he’s eloquent on such occasions -- but what he did.

Needless to say, the commentariat ignored this advice, with prominent pundits like Andrew Sullivan, David Brooks, and George Packer praising Obama’s remarks for his Niebuhrian "Christian Realism." (In his New Yorker comment on the speech, Packer uses variations on the word "realism" four different times.) So having originally decided to ignore it, I decided I’d better go back and read it again (see Whitman quotation above).

There's no question that realists can find much to agree with in the speech.  Instead of promising a "war to end all wars," he warned his listeners that "we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes." He also acknowledged that the use of force is sometimes "not only necessary but morally justified" and made it clear that his role as head of state is first and foremost "to protect and defend” the United States. Why? Because he must "face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people." Hard to think of a more "realist" notion than that. And surely realists would agree that his position is "a recognition of history, the imperfections of man, and the limits of reason."

That said, other aspects of the speech were less consistent with realist thinking as well as less convincing in themselves. He suggested that the world "needed institutions to prevent another world war," even though the case that institutions can or have performed that role is weak. Institutions are useful tools, to be sure, and one can argue that the United Nations has performed valuable peace-keeping roles in a number of places, but institutions cannot prevent great powers from pursuing their interests and did relatively little to prevent another world war.

Instead, as Obama himself acknowledged, what has kept peace among the great powers over the past sixty years is mostly power. Here Obama gave full credit to the United States, saying that it "has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades." Most realists would agree -- but only up to a point. As Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall show in their excellent new book, America’s Cold War, the United States did play a positive role in stabilizing Europe after World War II and in containing possible Soviet expansion in that region afterwards. But they also show that America’s role in Indochina, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East was far more destructive, even though the U.S. leaders who conducted these policies undoubtedly thought they are serving a larger moral purpose as well.

Furthermore, despite his wise remarks about the human capacity for error, the limits of reason, and the like, it was still a speech that invoked the threat of “evil” to justify the use of force, and applied an implicit double standard to the conduct of the United States, its friends, and other powerful states.   

This contradiction was most evident in his discussion of the need for "certain rules of conduct" regarding the use of force, and his call to "develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to change behavior." In particular, he wants to sanction "regimes that break the rules" and declared they "must be held accountable -- sanctions must exact a real price." He went on to say "those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flauted."

But although Obama said that "all nations -- strong and weak alike -- must adhere to standards that govern the use of force," he clearly didn't mean it.   He was hardly endorsing international sanctions against the United States when it breaks existing "rules of conduct," as it did when it invaded Iraq in 2003, fired cruise missiles into Sudan in 1998, or engages in targeted assassinations of suspected terrorists (and sometimes kills innocent civilians in the bargain) today. Surely he was not proposing to sanction Israel for its refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty or for its illegal colonization of the West Bank. Nor do I think he was suggesting that the international community hold China "accountable" for its absorption of Tibet.

One could argue that this part of the speech was eminently "realist" too -- the strong do what they can, while the weak suffer what they must. And despite his reminder that "evil exists," Obama acknowledged the possibility that fear of change and other sources of insecurity can lead to extreme actions, and that no one is immune to that temptation. "For we are fallible," he said, "We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptation of pride and power, and sometimes evil."

That passage was perhaps the most genuinely “realist” element in the speech. Like most liberals, Americans are prone to demonizing their supposedly "evil" adversaries and find it hard to admit that sometimes our own behavior isn't so very different. It's not just that other states have a "reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower," as Obama put it, the real problem is that some of that suspicion is warranted.   Realists understand the moral distinctions can and should be drawn, but they also recognize that much harm is done not with openly evil intent, but rather through a combination of fear, stupidity, sloth, greed and narrow-mindedness. Insecurity is hardwired into the anarchic international system, and with that insecurity comes suspicion, competition, and the omnipresent possibility that smart and well-intentioned people will still make big mistakes. When great power is involved, even seemingly small acts of corruption or malfeasance can have horrific consequences.

In the end, that is why I still think we should pay less attention to what he said and focus on what he and his advisors do. In his first year in office, President Obama has made two critical decisions involving matters of war, peace and justice. The first is his decision to abandon the admirable principles he set forth in his Cairo speech in June, to tacitly accept the continued expansion of Israel's West Bank settlements, and to collude in a well-orchestrated assault on the Goldstone Report on war crimes in Gaza.  The result will be to perpetuate precisely the sort of injustice that gives rise to very violence he deplored in his speech. The second is his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan -- sending 17,000 troops last spring and 30,000 more last month -- despite the continued absence of a compelling rationale or coherent strategy for success.

From Day One, Obama has shown that he is a thoughtful and intelligent leader who takes his responsibilities seriously and weighs decisions carefully. But in the end, what matters is not how long or hard he thinks or how well he talks. What matters is whether he makes the right decisions. And by that criterion, he's 0 for 2.

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

Yesterday our distinguished and highly principled House of Representatives passed HR 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA). The new measure is the brainchild of Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), and best one can say for it is that it is a foolish bit of political posturing.  As Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now and Matt Duss at the Center for American Progress make clear, this act will do virtually nothing to change the Iranian government’s behavior or weaken the political grip of the clerics and Revolutionary Guards. (See also Gal Luft and Alireza Nader's 's FP pieces here and here.) Instead, it will undoubtedly cause a lot of suffering among ordinary Iranians and reinforce the widespread perception that Uncle Sam is indifferent to the sufferings of others. It will also complicate U.S. efforts to get stronger multilateral sanctions on Iran, and is therefore counterproductive to any broader effort to address Iran’s nuclear ambitions. And you may rest assured that when this new set of sanctions fails, hardliners will  argue that "we've tried everything," and that we must therefore rely on other options (i.e., preventive war).

It's not like Congress was unaware of some of these counter-arguments -- for example, all four witnesses at a Tuesday hearing before the House National Security and Foreign Affairs subcommittee said they would vote against the legislation if given the option--but these expressions of sanity could not stop the stampede to folly. AIPAC endorsed the legislation (duh!), but so did J Street, the self-advertised "pro-peace, pro-Israel" lobby that appears to be trimming its sails more and more with each passing month.  Needless to say, the act passed overwhelmingly (412-12, with four others voting "present"). No wonder Mark Twain once complained that Congress contains "the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes." With maybe sixteen exceptions.